Tag Archives: muslims

Michael sent me a fascinating article about the continuing Muslim insurgency against India, and India’s strategy of just-ignoring-it. It’s a fascinating approach, and similar (so I’ve heard) to India’s strategy against the Maoists in the east: ignore them. As I understand it, India is making a concerted effort to be and to act in relation to its regional neighbor China, instead of its physical neighbors Pakistan and Nepal. To use the word association game, India wants you to think of “India-China,” not “India-Pakistan” or “India-Nepal”:

Its ancient markets are as packed as ever. Its bright new malls bustle as never before. And few talk of avenging attacks that just a few years ago would likely have brought South Asia’s nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of war.

This must be coming as some political cost. India is losing as many lives as another Muslim-inspired insurgency: Iraq. (Though obviously in both Islam is an enabling, if not a driving, force.)

Still, the attacks have done little to alter life for most Indians, as terror-related deaths only account for a fraction of India’s 1.1 billion people. The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center reported 3,674 deaths from January 2004 to March 2007, second only to Iraq.

The partition of British South Asia, by removing a great number of Muslims from the Union of India, may be paying off. While we cannot roll-back history, it’s easy to see how disastrous life would be in India if it had 170 million more Muslims! In this way, the partition of British India reminds one of the end of the Cold War, where the European nations best suited to globalization (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, etc.) leaving the dead-weight of Russia behind.

Of course, this progress may be reversed. In Europe, weakness to Russia may encourage Russian diplomatic, financial, and economic control over Europe, retarding economic growth and helping pull west Eurasia off-line. In South Asia, Pakistan is relatively weaker, but >certain psychopathic proposals such as encouraging mass (non-token) people movement from Pakistan to India would only make the situation worse.

One of the breakthroughs of work on the Core and the Gap is that there is techniques that work perfectly well with the Core do not work in the Gap, and a focus on “justice” (which is part of the normal judicial process in the Core) only drags the Gap deeper into a self-referential spiral of despair.

The future, not the past, is the watch-word of the Core. When the Gap speaks, we close our ears, as we must. When the Gap attacks, we ignore when we can, we destroy what we must, and firewall the rest. When we integrate the Gap, it is on the basis of profit, not justice.

The Way We Live Now – The New Pariahs? – The Rise of Anti-Islamic Bias in Western Europe – NYTimes.com
Even Britain, which has afforded Muslims a more welcoming environment, has had some worrying moments. A few years back, a Labor M.P. called for an end to â€œthe tradition of first-cousin marriagesâ€ among Pakistanis and other South Asians in Britain. The basis for her suggestion was the claim that Pakistanis in Britain were more likely than the general population to suffer from recessive autosomal genetic disorders. Of course, so are Ashkenazi Jews, but you can hardly imagine an M.P. proposing to limit Jewsâ€™ marriage choices for this reason, especially given the historic Nazi allegation of Jewish genetic inferiority.

Matrimonial incest is a pretty good definition of the Gap. It’s also bad for the health of a people. Children of first-cousins are not as healthy as children in the general population. This is true, no matter how many times you cry “Nazi!”

Joseph Goebbels was proud of being a fanatic. To him, fanaticism was a term of praise, and not abuse. The Hebrew Zealots looked with contempt on those who were unwilling either to die or to slaughter their own families. In the culture of the modern West, however, to call someone a fanatic is to insult, and not commend, him. Yet, as the incident at the Red Mosque makes clear, our own attitude toward fanaticism is simply an example of ethnocentricism. By refusing to use the word fanatic to describe Ghazi and his followers, we are approaching them through the standards and practices that are observed in our culture, but not in theirs.

At the Boyd Conference, William Lind made the good point that the Arab world has been in a cycle of corruption-internal reform movement-revolutionary-corruption. By supporting corrupt states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, we interrupted this cycle, between the generation of the internal reform movement (primarily the Muslim Brothers) and the revolution which would bring on either their corruption… or possibly a way out of the cycle. Assuming the old governments of the Middle East have our, or their own people’s, best interest at heart is foolish.

The Miami Herald notes an interest question: why, when America is a greater enemy of al Qaeda than Britain, do most al Qaeda attacks target the Crown and not the Constitution?

Some reasons are straight-forward:

The United States is geographically more separate from the Middle East, the home of Islamic fundamentalism. Beyond that, especially since 9/11, the nation has cracked down on both travel and new-resident visas, making it harder for terrorists from outside to get into the country.

But there’s this important one too:

”The Islamic population in the United States is better assimilated into the general population, whereas here, in Germany, in France, they’re very much on the outside looking in,” he said. “When people get disaffected, sadly, there’s not much loyalty to country in that sort of situation.”

Sadly, a fifth column of multiculturalists will do their best to roll back the integration of American Muslims.

Membership in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has declined more than 90 percent since the 2001 terrorist attacks, Audrey Hudson will report in Tuesday’s editions of The Washington Times.

According to tax documents obtained by The Times, the number of reported members spiraled down from more than 29,000 in 2000 to less than 1,700 in 2006, a loss of membership that caused the Muslim rights group’s annual income from dues to drop from $732,765 in 2000, when yearly dues cost $25, to $58,750 last year, when the group charged $35.

The organization instead is relying on about two dozen individual donors a year to contribute the majority of the money for CAIR’s budget, which reached nearly $3 million last year…

Critics of the organization say they are not surprised membership is sagging, and that a recent decision by the Justice Department to name CAIR as “unindicted co-conspirators” in a federal case against another foundation charged with providing funds to a terrorist group could discourage new members.

CAIR is a front-organization for Muslim extremists. Since 9/11, major news networks have highlighted them to give a “Muslim voice” (inevitably an apology for terror). It seems this publicity has allowed American Muslims to actually know what CAIR stands for, and to react accordingly.

Like Hanson, I think you’re too observant of friction and not of force (the former being primary a function of the latter, but hardly its master). It’s very seductive and seems very perceptive in historical terms (hence the appeal to historians), but it’s a trap of immense proportions in terms of solid strategic thinking (live in the world you find yourself in, because these are revolutionary times).

Acutlaly, I think Tom and I are closer than that. The recent Islamism in Turkey is doubtless a response to the uncertainties of a globalizing economy, and thus come from different sources than Arab extremism. And again, I am naturally sympathetic to the Turkish cause. I’ve criticized German maltreatment of Turks before. But the idea of mass Turkish immigration to Europe, which is inseparable from a meaningful entry of Turkey to the European Union, is too dangerous.

Back to our asynch dialogue of late: to me, attacking Iran overloads the Core on feedback, thus putting it at risk. I can’t grow the Core if I split it, thus my fear.

This is the best reason for keeping Turkey out of Europe. Europe is in making national identities more fluid than they have been any time since the Dark Ages. That’s not an exaggeration. The blending of German, French, and Italian peoples has not happened on this scale since Charlemagne. Europe apperas to be able to handle this, but Europe already is having problems processing Muslim immigrants. Allowing Turks to live freely in Europe would ramp up this disruptive feedback to Europe, perhaps splitting Europe off from the rest of the Core. (The concern is not that Europe would descend to a third-world country — though the no-go zones already have — but that Europe’s attention and concerns would become centered on its unique Islam problem and not applicable to other Core-wide pursuits.)

Not a Continent for Turks?

The impact of massive Turkish immigration to Europe would far, far exceed yet another chapter in the “America acts recklessly in the Middle East” saga that Europe’s been watching for decades. So how can one oppose an Iran War, out of concern for the Core’s reaction, while supporting Turkish immigration to Europe? Especially when other larger and vital states, such as Ukraine, have yet to be integrated.

Thanks to the generosity of a fellow officer in my dorm’s government, enjoyed free tickets to The Producers. Loved it. Much funnier than the 2005 film version (or even the original Mel Brooks movie), the play is a brilliant combination of physical, situational, political, and general humor. No wonder it’s the most award winning play in history.

The political message of the play can be summed up in a line of dialog from the second act

“You made a fool of the Fuerher!”
“He didn’t need our help!”

Yet Mel Brooks’ vicious, satirical attack on the Nazi Party and German ultranationalism was not condemned by Nebraska’s sizeable German community. The reason is obvious: American Germans do not see Nazis as part of their community, American Germans are not sympathetic to Nazi Party ideals or methods, and very few American Germans would view the American government as partially or largely at fault for World War II.

Goose steps are the new steps for me

American Germans do not “respect” Nazis and Americans do not “respect” the Nazi Party.

Long Island University has fired five students from their positions as resident assistants at the C.W. post campus after they posted a fake hostage video on the Internet with the pretend hostage takers speaking in Middle Eastern accents.

“This is not an issue of free speech, but rather an issue of respect for others and insensitively to acts of violence,” university Provost Joseph Shenker said in a statement obtained by FOXNews.com

In the video, five figures in ski masks speak in crude Middle Eastern accents as they threaten a ‘captive’ â€” a rubber duck named ‘Pete’ that serves as the mascot of a residence hall at the campus, Newsday first reported. The video was posted on the Web sites Google and YouTube, but it has since been removed, according to the newspaper.

A search of those two sites on Thursday also failed to recover the video, which Shenker said was reported by residence life staff to administrators on Jan. 30.

Rabiah Ahmed of The Council on American-Islamic Relations told FOXNews.com that based on what was reported about the video, â€œit does stereotype Muslims in a negative way.â€

In the two weeks since I wrote about the increasing isolation of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch parliamentarian, her isolation has markedly increased. Dutch courts have already required her to vacate her home as a result of her neighbors’ petition to have her evicted, and she was on the verge of resigning her seat in the Dutch parliament and of requesting the right of residence in the United States. But this was not enough to satisfy her critics. A leftist news team in the Netherlands has broadcast an item about the way in which she had initially entered the country, and now the immigration minister has proposed stripping her of citizenship (and thus of her seat in parliament) as a result of the irregularities involved.

…

It will be delightful to have Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Washington. But the American Enterprise Institute, which has offered her a perch, is not the place where she is most needed. In Holland, every day, extremist imams preach intolerance and cruelty, and, when they are criticized, invoke the help of foreign embassies to bring pressure on the Dutch authorities. They face no risk of expulsion. In my youth, the action of lighting one person’s cigarette with another was calledâ€”don’t ask me whyâ€”a “Dutch f***.” I once heard a young lady, offered a light in those terms, respond loftily by saying, “Doesn’t say much for the Low Countries, does it?” No, it didn’t, and neither does this mean and petty harassment of a woman who has also redefined that old expression “Dutch courage.”

And yet the unbalanced reactions to the not-so-provocative caricatures — loud denunciations and even death threats toward us, but very little outrage toward the people who attacked two Danish Embassies — unmasked unpleasant realities about Europe’s failed experiment with multiculturalism. It’s time for the Old Continent to face facts and make some profound changes in its outlook on immigration, integration, and the coming Muslim demographic surge. After decades of appeasement and political correctness, combined with growing fear of a radical minority prepared to commit serious violence, Europe’s moment of truth is here.

Europe today finds itself trapped in a posture of moral relativism that is undermining its liberal values. An unholy three-cornered alliance between Middle East dictators, radical imams who live in Europe, and Europe’s traditional left wing is enabling a politics of victimology. This politics drives a culture that resists integration and adaptation, perpetuates national and religious differences, and aggravates such debilitating social ills as high immigrant crime rates and entrenched unemployment.

Historic Mecca, the cradle of Islam, is being buried in an unprecedented onslaught by religious zealots.

Almost all of the rich and multi-layered history of the holy city is gone. The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimates that 95 per cent of millennium-old buildings have been demolished in the past two decades.

Now the actual birthplace of the Prophet Mohamed is facing the bulldozers, with the connivance of Saudi religious authorities whose hardline interpretation of Islam is compelling them to wipe out their own heritage.

Many commentators call Mecca “the most holy city in Islam.” The Wahabis would call that idolatry. And kill anyone who believes that.

The driving force behind the demolition campaign that has transformed these cities is Wahhabism. This, the austere state faith of Saudi Arabia, was imported by the al-Saud tribal chieftains when they conquered the region in the 1920s.

The motive behind the destruction is the Wahhabists’ fanatical fear that places of historical and religious interest could give rise to idolatry or polytheism, the worship of multiple and potentially equal gods.

The practice of idolatry in Saudi Arabia remains, in principle at least, punishable by beheading. This same literalism mandates that advertising posters can and need to be altered. The walls of Jeddah are adorned with ads featuring people deliberately missing an eye or with a foot painted over. These contrived imperfections are the most glaring sign of an orthodoxy that tolerates nothing which fosters adulation of the graven image. Nothing can, or can be seen to, interfere with a person’s devotion to Allah.

Note: This post is not rhetoric. I do not know the answers to the questions I ask in this article. Caerdroia and others have asked themselves similar questions recently. — tdaxp

A while ago, I approvingly quoted Mark Safranski when he said

Somehow I think we can take precautions to screen out young Islamist males belonging to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaida without targeting 180 I.Q. Asian physicists and genetic engineers.

How likely is it than a 180 IQ Asian physicist is a suicide bomber?

About as likely as an Asian special ed teacher is a suicide bomber, I would guess

Mohammad Sidique Khan had a trusted job as a primary school teaching assistant working with children from poor and vulnerable families arriving in Britain.

Khan, 30, who ran an Islamic bookshop, was employed as a â€œlearning mentorâ€ in an inner-city district with a high proportion of asylum-seekers, homeless families and battered wives.

His mother-in-law, a highly respected Asian volunteer worker, was invited to Buckingham Palace to be honoured by the Queen for a lifetime of community work, particularly with women.

Khan was one of two learning mentors employed at Hillside Primary School in Beeston, which had such a high turnover that 75 per cent of pupils could change in a year. His task was to liaise with childrenâ€™s previous schools on their special needs and to assess their learning skills. On their first day at school, children would rely on Khan, who was their official â€œbuddyâ€. He was given the privileged position of sitting, with the head teacher, through interviews with new families to the area. Many were single mothers, fresh immigrants, refugees or victims of domestic violence.

London Transit Bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan

So what is the point where we have to either crack down on nearly every country in the world or just Muslim countries? Where do we reach such strategic despair that refusing to admit hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims is better than refusing to admit a billion innocent humans?

Closing the borders of The Core to Gap-state Muslims would represent a major strategic win for al Qaeda. But if it stops these terrorist attacks that endanger regular business life in the Core it would still be beneficial to us.

Here’s another way to think about this. I started USD’s Computer Science graduate program mid-year, so I narrowly missed out on being in this class photo

USD Computer Science Graduate Program Photo Many Indian and Chinese students not shown,

as they work full-time on H1-B visas

Does it hurt the Core more to make it a hassle for these sorts to enter the United States, or making it impossible for foreign Muslim men to enter the United States?

At what point do we reach strategic despair, and seal our borders to this certain class of foreigner?